The 7 biggest flaws of college soccer

The college game has been an institution in United States soccer for over a century now, and has provided a number of players to both MLS and the USMNT. Still, a number of issues plague the game, and its prominence in the U.S. is holding back the sport as a whole. Here are seven of the biggest flaws with college soccer.

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Offseason restrictions

"A member institution may permit not more than five student-athletes with eligibility remaining in intercollegiate soccer to practice or compete out of season on an outside, amateur soccer team."

In a sport where technique is of the utmost importance, regular daily training is necessary for developing players to reach their potential. The NCAA season is already wildly short at right around four months, forcing players to figure out their own training situations for a full eight months out of the year.

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Running substitutions

NCAA college soccer allows up to 11 substitutions at a time. Players are also allowed one re-entry in the match, as opposed to professional soccer's strict three-sub rule.

With players able to simply run themselves into the ground and count on an early substitution, this leads to an over-emphasis on physicality and speed, strongly de-emphasizing technical ability and tactical intelligence.

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Poor coaching

Make no mistake, there are a number of quality coaches amongst the NCAA ranks. On the opposite spectrum though, with no coaching badge requirements and over 200 teams in Division 1 alone, there are an overwhelming number of underqualified coaches tasked with bringing up the next generation of American soccer.

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Condensed season

College soccer's entire season is crammed into just four months of play, running from late August to early November for regular season play, with the NCAA championship played in November and December.

This compact schedule sees teams regularly playing twice per week, and even often twice per weekend. This leads to injuries due to lack of adequate recovery time, and a lack of proper training simply due to the number of games squeezed into such a short period.

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Bloated rosters

There are no restrictions on college roster sizes. This sees teams regularly carrying 30+ players in their squad and large numbers of players simply riding the bench for months at a time, limited to (already minimal) training time and little to no match experience.

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Lack of oversight from USSF

The U.S. Soccer Federation has its own Development Academy system, meant to groom players from a young age for the professional ranks. For this reason, the USSF has a frosty relationship with college soccer, and has actively attempted to circumvent the institution. As such, there is no oversight from the U.S.'s biggest footballing institution, and college soccer has stagnated, remaining largely unchanged to this day.

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The countdown clock

It may be a small gripe, but no one else in the entire soccer world uses a countdown clock that stops for each cessation in play. It serves no purpose, except to make the game more "American".